Monday, May 25, 2009

See you later Sergei... Via TSN, Sergei Federov is running from the United States to the KHL, as he signed with Evgeni Malkins old club Metallurg Magnitogorsk... Now there are some popular opinions on why he would do this, ending his career in his home country, to play with his younger brother, or to get in on the ground floor of an up and coming hockey league... While these may be the case, I can only assume that the Pens scared him out of the NHL...

Anyways, this is a growing trend in the NHL of our elders jumping ship to the KHL... In my opinion, for the european and russian players with a cup this is the right move... They get to play closer to their family, they get paid more or equal, and they get to play like 30 less games (i am under the assumption that most european leagues are like 50 some games long, correct me if i'm wrong)...

A lot of people think this is going to be a problem, but I won't get worried until we start losing younger talent... This will be very interesting to see what happens with all of this in the future. This is the first sport that really has comparable talent dispersed over such large distances (the only other sport that comes close is soccer, but the US doesn't field that many quality soccer players)... I think the game they had last year with the rangers vs. the champions league (European champion) for the "Victoria Cup" was a step in the right direction, but in the future the NHL will have to field a more quality team (i.e. the NHL champion not a team that lost in 5 games in the second round of the playoffs) like the SC champs...

Janne Quick Bio

Janne won four Finnish championships in 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008. In 2008 he also scored the most points in the SM-Liiga with 34 goals and 44 assists for 78 points in only 56 games. In addition to being the league's current scoring champion, Pesonen was the SM-Liiga Rookie of the Year in 2003-04, and was the playoff most valuable player (MVP) in 2007.

Originally drafted in 2004 in the NHL Entry draft by the Anaheim Ducks in the 9th round. In 2008 Janne was signed to a 1 year contract by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Conn Smythe + Stanley > Hart + Pearson

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